Cure for mom’s heart condition that caused fainting while eating

Sarah Hall's heart would stop beating properly up to 12 times a day triggered by her swallowing when eating.

The 50-year-old would regularly faint, suffering visual disturbances and blackouts, where she lost consciousness.

Hall, from St. Albans in Hertfordshire, had to stop driving and was signed off from work for several months — and was too afraid to eat in public.

She was diagnosed with a condition called cardioinhibitory swallow syncope — with fewer than 150 reported cases worldwide.

The act of swallowing overstimulates the vagus nerve, which sends signals between your brain, heart and digestive system, causing a drop or pause in heart rate.

Hall has now been successfully treated using a cutting-edge medical procedure — and has not fainted since.

The midwife said: “This condition I had affected everything — my job, my independence, and my home life.

“During family meals, my husband would have to sit next to me in case I lost consciousness, and my children would be wondering if I would make it through to the end without blacking out.

"What should have been normal family time became stressful and frightening.

“I had to stop driving and I was signed off work for several months. It was one of the hardest times in my life.

"I started to have these scary thoughts that my heart might just stop when I was eating and never restart. But now I can live without fear.”

Hall first began occasionally fainting, accompanied by vomiting, when she was 39.

But several years later, at the age of 45, she began to experience dizziness which seemed to be triggered by eating.

By the time she was 48, she was far more regularly fainting accompanied by visual disturbances and blackouts, where she lost consciousness.

Mealtimes frequently ended in Hall fainting or losing consciousness, leaving her terrified to go out for dinner with friends in case she collapsed and hit her head.

Hall said: “Since I was in my late 40s, I assumed this was just the perimenopause or that I had low blood sugar or dehydration from being a busy midwife in a hospital who did not eat or drink that regularly.

“But, at its worst, this was causing me to lose consciousness multiple times a day, and I was too afraid to eat in public in case it happened.

“It was when I lost consciousness in front of my children, who were only 12 at the time, during a family lunch, that the confusing and distressing situation made me realize that I really did need to get checked out.”

Hall was diagnosed with cardioinhibitory swallow syncope — a type of vasovagal syncope in which the vagus nerve overreacts to a trigger.

When Hall swallowed, this stimulated her vagus nerve, generating electrical impulses which could slow her heart down.

In extreme cases, like Hall’s, someone’s heart rate doesn’t just slow down, but pauses — for up to a minute.

Hall had a cardioneural ablation (CNA) in 2024, under a research trial, which involves doctors inserting thin tubes called catheters through the groin and guiding them up to the heart.

Using small electrical currents to stimulate nerves, the researchers created a detailed map of the outer layer of the heart to identify the nerves which triggered the heart-slowing response.

Then they delivered ablation, which generates heat to a specific region in the heart to safely destroy these problematic nerve cells.

Hall said: “In the months leading up to my ablation, every time I ate I would feel the blood draining from my head and be overwhelmed by dizziness which turned everything black until sometimes I lost consciousness.

“I never knew when it would happen, and eating had become functional, unenjoyable, and something I avoided socially.

"Those around me treated every mealtime as a ‘high-alert’ situation.

“But after the ablation, I can go out for dinner again, enjoy food, and say yes to social plans without fear.

"I can drive, I can work — it feels like everything has come full-circle.

"My life is truly back to normal.”

Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, British Heart Foundation’s clinical director and a consultant cardiologist, said: "For most of us, fainting is not harmful, but if you faint really often, your everyday life can be severely disrupted.

"Beyond the risk of injury, it can affect your confidence, independence and mental wellbeing, because these episodes are so unpredictable.

"The small study adds to growing evidence that using a specialized cardiac catheter lab procedure to disrupt bodies of nerve cells located near the heart could be transformative for people living with daily or weekly fainting episodes."

Researchers hope their research could pave the way for larger trials and wider adoption of CNA, potentially giving new hope to patients whose lives are severely disrupted by repeated blackouts.

Dr. Mohamed Zuhair, syncope fellow and researcher at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, noted: "CNA offers a way to treat the root cause of this condition.

"It allowed the people in the study to get back to living normal lives without needing a pacemaker.

"We hope that this procedure will be adopted by more clinicians.”